Synthesizing multispecies response to climate change

Measuring calcification and photosynthesis in response to ocean acidification.

In the absence of detailed information for all species, can ecological or evolutionary theory predict how groups of species will respond to global change? I used a suite of coralline algae vulnerable to ocean acidification to test different models of their response to experimental acidification. Ultimately, response to ocean acidification was predictable from easily measured morphological traits. This work has broadly applicable insights into ways that ecological theory can guide our scaling from experimental climate change ecology to in situ predictions. Future work includes: 1) how general are these rules to predict response to global change? and 2) what limits scaling individual & species-level predictions to communities?